You may have seen “motivational memes” on the internet that say things like “We all have the same 24 hours in a day”.
Usually followed by something like “Some people run countries or big, international companies in that time”
Or “There are 168 hours / 10,080 minutes in the week – you only need to exercise for 4% of that”.
Is it true?
Well the latter clearly is.
Technically.
But it’s somewhat misleading.
And the former?
The “same” 24 / 168 hours?
I’m not so sure.
In over 23 years in this industry I’ve had many thousands of conversations with people.
And not only have I seen big differences in how much stuff people have on……….
I’ve also seen huge variety in how that stuff actually fits in to a diary.
Whilst I’d put the total amount of stuff that the wife and I get done in a week up against anyone (and I’m actually pretty confident that I have way more to fit into a day than most who I see sharing these memes)……..
I’m aware I have a lot more flexibility in how I put my day together than many (my wife included) do.
A reasonable amount of what I do can be done at any time, as long as it gets done.
So I fully appreciate that, whilst I may have 24 hours in a day, it’s not necessarily the ‘same’ 24 hours as everyone else.
And I know that that applies between all people.
I know some people have days where they genuinely cannot assign enough time to what they think needs to be done.
But……….
If that over 24 years of doing this has taught me anything……….
It’s that the human brain is very good at switching off to what we still can do under the circumstances……….
When we can’t do the version that we feel that we should do.
There will probably be things that we can do that take little enough time that we can fit them in.
5 minutes of bodyweight exercise won’t get us the same results as three 45 minute Group Personal Training Sessions.
But they’ll get us more results than zero exercise.
Or maybe we can still do one in person Session that week which will always make more sense than doing nothing until we “can fit three in”.
And there are probably do things that we can do that take zero additional time.
Just different food choices.
Portion control.
There’s no version of reality where eating the appropriate portion of the same food takes any more time than eating a larger portion than we need.
We don’t all have “the same 24 hours in the day”.
But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t choices that we can make in those 24 hours that future us will thank us for.
Do what fits – not what’s ideal.
Much love,
Jon ‘I give you my word’ Hall
P.S. Jack Bauer / 24 innit?
P.S. I have a choice for you. Click www.myrise.co.uk/apply, get more info about what we do and we have a chat about the programme, see if we’re a good fit for each other and you, maybe, end up changing your life. Or you don’t. And don’t. Your call!
